Trouble logging in?If you can't remember your password or are having trouble logging in, you will have to reset your password. If you have trouble resetting your password (for example, if you lost access to the original email address), please do not start posting with a new account, as this is against the forum rules. If you create a temporary account, please contact us right away via Forum Support, and send us any information you can about your original account, such as the account name and any email address that may have been associated with it.

Battler's particular degree of incompetence in that context is not relevant in any factual or evidentiary sense, only in terms of how he is performing.

And by the way, a person having an abstract quality such as competence actually cannot be verified in reality. It's unfalsifiable; you can only demonstrate whether they competently handled a particular situation. The fact that a person failed to assemble a puzzle does not actually prove that they are incapable of solving any puzzle or indeed that they are even incapable of solving that puzzle. They could be feigning incompetence or just not interested. That one puzzle could just be really hard for them. Any assessment of their overall competence derived from that would solely be the opinion of the individual doing the assessment.

That's incredibly pedantic, but a spade's a spade.

Competence is not a binary state. Additionally, factual evidence suggests Battler possesses some measure of competence. It's simply more reasonable to believe Beatrice was joking or expressing an opinion than making a statement of fact. A statement of fact in that situation which is indisputable would be "The logic you are using cannot possibly lead to the correct solution." This is a fact statement properly tailored to the situation and cannot reasonably be construed as her opinion (it could potentially be viewed as such, but at that point the author would lose our confidence).

The extreme advantage of narrative over reality is that you can have the word of God on it. Of course it doesn't work that way in the real world, but this is a story we are talking about. Creating absolute truths in a story is possible.

When I mentioned the anti-mystery letter earlier, this is exactly what I was getting at.
Look back at my example with the knowledge of arc 1-2-3-4 but not 5-6-7-8. This is pretty much what the letter is talking about. Ryuukishi used the example of "the secret files of Watanagashi/Meakashi, that even a writer could not predict their own future. This inability to do so makes "the truth" something that can be redefined and changed after, making it even less absolute then in the real world.

Edit: Think of Lambda Delta, the Witch of Certainty, who knows that it does not exist.
Think of why she is needed for Beatrice's game to work.

And by the way, a person having an abstract quality such as competence actually cannot be verified in reality. It's unfalsifiable

it's absolutely falsiable. If you claim someone is incompetent he just needs to prove his competence to falsify the statement. Of course it is to assume that someone who truly is incompetent cannot possibly perform well in the specific task not to a degree that can't simply be attributed to dumb luck.
We have statistic for that and tests based on statistic. If you think anything in the human knowledge can assume a level higher to a stastic probability except for things that humans themselves invented you are a fool.

The fact that competence and incompetence aren't a binary state doesn't change my point. A lot of things couldn't be classified as true or false according to your logic just because they aren't a binary.

According to your distorted logic I couldn't even say that I'm happy or sad or that a particular student has good grades or that people are free or prisoners.

You also seem to forget that the nature of red truths is trascendental by definition. Most of them wouldn't be verifiable in any way in a real scenario. So your arguing about verifiability is completely pointless.

Quote:

When I mentioned the anti-mystery letter earlier, this is exactly what I was getting at.
Look back at my example with the knowledge of arc 1-2-3-4 but not 5-6-7-8. This is pretty much what the letter is talking about. Ryuukishi used the example of "the secret files of Watanagashi/Meakashi, that even a writer could not predict their own future. This inability to do so makes "the truth" something that can be redefined and changed after, making it even less absolute then in the real world.

In narrative you can create absolute truths and you can destroy them. But usually authors know better than destroy the truths that have precedently established.

The fact that some authors don't know any better, doesn't mean that there's never been a a story with absolute truths. Most stories have them.

Quote:

Edit: Think of Lambda Delta, the Witch of Certainty, who knows that it does not exist.
Think of why she is needed for Beatrice's game to work.

I think you are confusing bern with Lambda. I don't remember Lambda ever saying that certainty doesn't exist. If she did, please quote

it's absolutely falsiable. If you claim someone is incompetent he just needs to prove his competence to falsify the statement. Of course it is to assume that someone who truly is incompetent cannot possibly perform well in the specific task not to a degree that can't simply be attributed to dumb luck.

"Competence" generally is not. If a person proves he is capable of doing something, he is demonstrating only that he is not incompetent at a particular task. You can't falsify the statement that he is incompetent as an abstract unless you specifically define "incompetent" to mean "capable of performing no tasks."

Is that your position? Because as respects Umineko it's precarious. Why? Because it makes Beatrice's statement false. Battler is provably capable of performing some tasks, and doing so with great "competence." Therefore you would pretty much have to take one of two positions:

Beatrice's statement was opinion and Battler's ability to do so some things does not bear on her opinion that he is not sufficiently competent (and thus "incompetent" in her opinion); or

Beatrice's statement was a factual assessment that Battler is not capable of performing any task competently. Since Battler demonstrates that he is capable of performing some tasks competently, Beatrice's statement is false. However, she was not prohibited from saying it and no Logic Error ensued. Therefore, her statement cannot have a truth value which contradicts Battler's demonstrated competence.

Since you already agreed with me that you can say only non-logical or true logical statements in red, you clearly agree with me that this is so, and therefore the only conclusion you can rationally draw is that the statement cannot be a logical statement which describes the actual fact situation in question.

Quote:

We have statistic for that and tests based on statistic. If you think anything in the human knowledge can assume a level higher to a stastic probability except for things that humans themselves invented you are a fool.

All a test score proves is that a person is good at taking that particular test.

Quote:

According to your distorted logic I couldn't even say that I'm happy or sad or that a particular student has good grades or that people are free or prisoners.

You can say that you're happy or sad, but your statement cannot be demonstrated to be proof of anything except that you believe yourself to be happy or sad. Good grades can be subjective, so yes, it's possible you could say only that you think the grades are good. And "freedom" is such an abstract concept that it is arguable that a person who is physically incarcerated wouldn't see himself as such (for example, if he had no awareness of his incarceration).

So... yes? That's not really distorted logic at all.

Quote:

You also seem to forget that the nature of red truths is trascendental by definition. Most of them wouldn't be verifiable in any way in a real scenario. So your arguing about verifiability is completely pointless.

I don't mean verifiable as in backed up by other evidence. I mean verifiable in terms of whether it makes sense for them to be taken as axiomatic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leafsnail

I can see that those statements have no truth value, but something like "These seals will not be broken" clearly does, and there's pretty much no way to construe it as an opinion.

It's not an opinion, you're right.

It's a prediction. Predictions are not logical statements; at best they are hypotheses. A hypothesis only becomes a logical statement when it is tested and a conclusion is derived. In other words, a prediction cannot have a truth value until circumstances arise which actually prove or disprove the prediction.

Worse yet: "These seals will not be broken [from this moment forward]" is a statement that you not only can't prove unless it happens, it's a statement you can never prove to be true. You can prove it false (by breaking them), but you can't actually confirm it (because as long as the seals exist, they may be broken in the future). Therefore, by simple logic, a prediction in red can never be true, yet could possibly be false.

In other words, predictions in red aren't just worthless, they completely undermine red and Ryukishi should never have used red for that purpose. But he isn't breaking his rules to do so.

EDIT: Note that there may be an implicit qualifier such as "until the end of the story," since a narrative has a discrete ending point. That doesn't actually make a prediction in red logically meaningful, but it would make the red retroactively true if we assume that all red text issued during the narrative will hold as true for the entire narrative at the end. The only problem there arises if the narrative can be altered while it is ongoing, and it's not actually clear that such a thing is even possible in Umineko's meta-fictional plane.

I think your view on authors is a bit too extreme. One of the thing that generally interests me the most about any given story is how much it was "changed while being written". What you call an absolute truth is simply a "lack of new truth". If you personally believe an author won't do this, it doesn't mean they will follow your opinion. You can never be certain of that unless they are dead. I don't think that's a very good basis to declare anything as absolute.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I think you are confusing bern with Lambda. I don't remember Lambda ever saying that certainty doesn't exist. If she did, please quote

Never said I was directly quoting her but it's pretty easy to get that reasoning. Very early as well.

"Competence" generally is not. If a person proves he is capable of doing something, he is demonstrating only that he is not incompetent at a particular task. You can't falsify the statement that he is incompetent as an abstract unless you specifically define "incompetent" to mean "capable of performing no tasks."

I think I have explained already that red statement are context related and I think it goes without saying that the concept of incompetence is always related to a specific task. I don't even think it is linguistically correct to talk about incompetence in such an abstract meaning.

The specif statement of incompetence said by Beatrice is to be related to the game, and I think the context is quite obvious there.
In this specific case I believe that Battler incompetence can be inferred even without the help of the red truth.

His incompentence in that situation and in that moment is a narrative fact unless you imagine that what was described is false.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

Good grades can be subjective, so yes, it's possible you could say only that you think the grades are good.

In which world you live? You really think your logic can make an university acknowledge that there is no objectivity in grades and that therefore anyone should be admitted regarless of them? Good luck with that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renall

And "freedom" is such an abstract concept that it is arguable that a person who is physically incarcerated wouldn't see himself as such (for example, if he had no awareness of his incarceration).

Therefore if there is no objectivity in slavery you might as well still have slaves and just redefine them as "slightly less free people".

You see your logic only works in a pure abstract philosophical context. In our real world it doesn't work. For non binary situaton there are well established tresholds when one can be considered in either side. freedom is not a binary condition, and yet there are laws that enforce freedom and abolish slavery. You should know that well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by UsagiTenpura

I think your view on authors is a bit too extreme. One of the thing that generally interests me the most about any given story is how much it was "changed while being written". What you call an absolute truth is simply a "lack of new truth". If you personally believe an author won't do this, it doesn't mean they will follow your opinion. You can never be certain of that unless they are dead. I don't think that's a very good basis to declare anything as absolute.

Funny fact: there are more dead authors than alive authors.

As for Lambda you clearly said that "she knows". What you quoted is a Bern's monologue. As far as I know Lambda never admitted or thought that certainty doesn't exist.

I think I have explained already that red statement are context related and I think it goes without saying that the concept of incompetence is always related to a specific task. I don't even think it is linguistically correct to talk about incompetence in such an abstract meaning.

It is linguistically impossible to talk about incompetence any other way, unless incompetence is defined as "does not perform a task," in which case that would be all it describes.

Quote:

His incompentence in that situation and in that moment is a narrative fact unless you imagine that what was described is false.

In that particular moment he did not think the way Beatrice wanted him to think. That he did not is not itself proof that he cannot, which is what incompetence means, the inability to do something correctly.

Battler didn't do something correctly. But he provably can, he just didn't at that time.

Quote:

In which world you live? You really think your logic can make an university acknowledge that there is no objectivity in grades and that therefore anyone should be admitted regarless of them? Good luck with that.

Therefore if there is no objectivity in slavery you might as well still have slaves and just redefine them as "slightly less free people".

You see your logic only works in a pure abstract philosophical context. In our real world it doesn't work. For non binary situaton there are well established tresholds when one can be considered in either side. freedom is not a binary condition, and yet there are laws that enforce freedom and abolish slavery. You should know that well.

But that isn't what I said.

What I said was "the evaluation of grade quality is subjective." This is absolutely true. And universities have subjective criteria for what level of grades they consider acceptable to admit a person to their programs. Harvard has higher standards than the University of Michigan. The University of Michigan has higher standards than Essex County Community College. Essex County Community College has higher standards than Generic Online University.

It can be objectively said that Harvard has higher grade standards numerically than Generic Online University. That does not prove anything except that one is more choosy with respect to a number that derives from various other factors, factors the universities may not even be aware of. It doesn't prove that Harvard always accepts better students.

Confinement and slavery are facts, interpretations are not. I was not making any sort of moral statement as to whether it is or is not right to confine a person. I was merely making the argument that a person who is absolutely confined (that is, his ability to do anything he wants is in some way restricted) does not necessarily believe he is confined, and does not necessarily believe that confinement is a bad thing.

As an example, say a man is born in an environment dome on the Moon. He is not aware that anything exists outside of his environment dome. The people who run the dome will not allow him to leave; however, since the man has no idea that it is even possible to leave, he has no negative emotional association of confinement as a bad thing. He does not know that he is confined, therefore he does not feel bad about it. Since he can do anything he wants inside the dome, and since the dome itself is his entire world, he believes himself to be free. And, from a certain perspective, he may indeed be free.

That doesn't make it moral or immoral to keep him confined in the environment dome. That is a wholly separate debate. But it is possible to imagine a scenario in which a physically confined person is mentally and emotionally free without deception.

Number 1 is the only acception that we care about, there are two cases:

In case "a" the statement has no meaning unless it's related to something
In case "b" it clearly specifies that it must be specific.

Quote:

That he did not is not itself proof that he cannot, which is what incompetence means, the inability to do something correctly.

It's more subtle than that. Incompetence is the lack of cognitive and intellectual means required to perform a certain task. Incompetence doesn't prevent you to perform a task through dumb luck. It's a matter of what you possess not what you can pull off.

Battler objectively lacked the required means to perform his role in a satisfying manner. The mere fact that he didn't know all the rules and what that game was really about is a definitive proof of his incompetence.

Quote:

Battler didn't do something correctly. But he provably can, he just didn't at that time.

Being incompetent isn't a trait nor an intrinsic quality by definition. It's not an incurable disease and therefore it should be considered true only in a given time.
If I say "Mark is a sophomore" I take for granted that you aren't dumb enough to not realize that this statement is true at this given moment and not forever.

As for what concerns the slavery argument, what you are saying is irrelevant for the discussion at hand. The fact that one might consider himself free because of ignorance is not relevant for the purpose of determining whether it is possible to consider him objectively free or not.

Your logic assumes that only binary conditions can objectively defined as such. But you are forgetting that as well as there are conventions about definitions there are conventions about tresholds above and under which those definitions apply.

So it doesn't matter if freedom and slavery aren't a binary. There is still a convention that defines how much freedom is required for someone to be considered free and how less of it one must have to be considered a prisoner or a slave.

of course conventions can change with time, but that's true for every definition. And that means there is absolutely no difference between binary states and those who lie on a spectrum.

The concept of incompetence isn't as well as defined as the concept of freedom, but I believe there is a treshold under which everyone or at least a good majority would agree that you can talk about incompetence.

I was pointing out it's just not a very good critera. I don't think you wait for authors to die to enjoy their work in general.

Quote:

As for Lambda you clearly said that "she knows". What you quoted is a Bern's monologue. As far as I know Lambda never admitted or thought that certainty doesn't exist.

My bad then, no I don't think she directly said that, tho I could explain what leads me to believe she did that's not exactly the point here and I cannot be certain of it, no.
Then I guess replace my statement about LD with that Bern screenshot. I still believe there's a reason that point was bought up very early in the story.

As for what concerns the slavery argument, what you are saying is irrelevant for the discussion at hand. The fact that one might consider himself free because of ignorance is not relevant for the purpose of determining whether it is possible to consider him objectively free or not.

It's entirely relevant because objective freedom may exist, but if it does, absolutely no agent is free. You're not, I'm not, nobody is. We have physical, biological, social, and circumstantial limitations on what we can do. I would like to travel to an alien planet. No one is preventing me from taking steps to do so. However, I physically can't do it. I am not absolutely free.

Competence is itself defined as "a particular or adequate amount of skill." As with the grade example, how much proficiency is "adequate" is subjective so long as it is non-zero. If Battler displays more than zero competence (and he does), the only fair assessment of his insufficiency Beatrice can make is her own personal subjective one. Battler is not competent enough for Beatrice. He is not objectively and absolutely not competent. In fact, he is exceptionally competent to solve certain types of mysteries, as he suggests answers that have actually appeared in other such mysteries.

Quote:

Your logic assumes that only binary conditions can objectively defined as such. But you are forgetting that as well as there are conventions about definitions there are conventions about tresholds above and under which those definitions apply.

"Convention" has no place in red truth assuming fact statements made in red are supposed to be axiomatically true.

Quote:

The concept of incompetence isn't as well as defined as the concept of freedom, but I believe there is a treshold under which everyone or at least a good majority would agree that you can talk about incompetence.

That would still be a convention. But ANY definition is a convention.

But the red truth does not deal in conventions. It deals in absolutes. That's what you yourself were trying to argue. At best, the sole authority on which convention is right within the story world is the author him or herself. But Beatrice-the-character is not Ryukishi-the-author. She's not even Beatrice-the-author.

It's entirely relevant because objective freedom may exist, but if it does, absolutely no agent is free. You're not, I'm not, nobody is. We have physical, biological, social, and circumstantial limitations on what we can do. I would like to travel to an alien planet. No one is preventing me from taking steps to do so. However, I physically can't do it. I am not absolutely free.

Nobody is absolutely free, but that doesn't mean we can't be objectively definied as "free" using the common acception of the word.

Definitions themselves aren't objective, but once they are set, you can make objective statement using them. Of course your statements will be only objective using the preset definitions.

Quote:

the only fair assessment of his insufficiency Beatrice can make is her own personal subjective one.

That's not necessarily subjective if it adheres to a common definition of incompetence.

Quote:

"Convention" has no place in red truth assuming fact statements made in red are supposed to be axiomatically true.

If you were to take it to such a degree then there is no possible way to make any red truth, because any red truth has to rely to definitions that can be at best widely accepted. But there is no such a thing as an absolute definition. Definitions change over time and they are arbitrarily created by people.

I think we discussed before that red truths in order to work should use the most common definitions and when they do not, the new definitions should be clearly specified.

Nobody is absolutely free, but that doesn't mean we can't be objectively definied as "free" using the common acception of the word.

You have no grasp of what the term "objective" seems to mean if you think we can "objectively" meet a "subjective" standard. To be objective, it has to be true regardless of what any entity thinks, believes, or observes. Therefore it is not possible to be objectively true in a subjective context. You're speaking nonsense and you're embarrassing yourself.

Of course not, I usually trust them. But when an author proves to me that the truths of his story can be changed at any given moment as he see fit, of course I can't trust him anymore.

Ironically Ryuukishi seems to realize the importance of trust between reader and author. So why he decided to betray it is beyond me.

Well authors usually do not use red truth to begin with anyway.
In the general expectations I have of literature to give foreshadowing enough to allow reasoning out the story, I don't really think Ryuukishi broke any trust.
He did a lot of unconventional things, but he gave us plenty to guess at them.

The only thing I think anyone can say is that Ryuukishi didn't explain to us what game we were playing at and what rules it used. However we were warned in arc 1 itself that the goal of the game was to figure out these rules. Explaining the rules of his game is the equivalent to giving the answer, so he can't do that.

Trust however remains something that cannot be 100% certain, or else no one would ever fall to deception.

Edit: Aura, I think Jan was saying something like you can objectively fit a consensus within that subjectivity.
For instance "What is a christian?" would probably spawn an endless debate of subjectivity, but within a specific time and society you can reach a consensus as to that subjective definition. You can then assert wether someone objectively fits that consensus or not.
The best example I could give of that is that you can objectively say that someone is a "kid" or an "adult" even tho that is a very subjective definition, as long as I refer to the social/legal consensus of what is an adult/what is a kid.

But even in that sense, you can only subjectively fall within those definitions because it requires a subjective observer to judge and establish these criteria. You cannot objectively fit into something subjective.

Beatrice didn't say it to state a fact, she did it to troll the hell out of him and goad him.

What I think she was referring to:
Battler was incompetent at that moment because he couldn't solve the First Twilight of Episode 2. Her criterion was "Battler is incompetent if he cannot solve the puzzle". However, once he solved the puzzle, he became competent so the Red Truth no longer applied. It did apply when she said it, because she thought he was incompetent. It is a subjective ruling, but as we have been shown the Red Truth's context must be considered.

I doubt it's canon and all (though 'canon' becomes a pretty lulzy notion when it comes to Meta-World shenanigans), but I do recall during the extra tip, "Beatrice's White Day", Battler made a predictive Red Truth “I will never ever, from this day forward, get you something for White Day!”

And Beato went all moe about it, and they bullshitted around it with the uncontested blue truth "White Day is the on the same day as Valentine’s Day, just a month later. So, tomorrow, when the man accepts your chocolate, he’ll reciprocate a month from the day it’s given.”

I can't quote a specific source, but I think someone (possibly Lambda) mentioned, or maybe it was implied, that using the red truth in certain ways was "vulgar" or "unrefined", and thus looked down upon and avoided, like using it to predict the future. It sort of fits the whole author thing to the degree that "If you say something about the future of your series, you have to keep your word, and you might create a situation that's hard to write your way out of". Like, bad example, Miss Rowling had red truth'd early on Dumbledore will not die during the series. I mean, I guess you can, but why place that kind of arbitrary limitation on yourself, unless it's someting like the Decalogue, which serves to prove you're "playing fair" with your readers?

I mean, I guess it's a little more nuanced than that, because Umineko deals with mystery, based on a ruleset, and fantasy, based on the lulz. I just sort of assumed that predictive red truths were true - Dlanor declared that certain things would NEVER exist, IIRC - they're just generally avoided as a rule, because they can make things awkward as the tale gets longer and more restricted by what came before.

As far as the cackling, well, it's not like they were ... lies. So... It's not that I never think to question the red's validity, but, geez. I'm pretty sure Battler was certainly incompetent at that time

But he WASN'T incompetent, is the thing. He was perfectly competent, and his inability to rise to Beatrice's expectations was because of her own shortcomings in providing information he needed to know to solve the mystery.

I can't quote a specific source, but I think someone (possibly Lambda) mentioned, or maybe it was implied, that using the red truth in certain ways was "vulgar" or "unrefined", and thus looked down upon and avoided, like using it to predict the future. It sort of fits the whole author thing to the degree that "If you say something about the future of your series, you have to keep your word, and you might create a situation that's hard to write your way out of". Like, bad example, Miss Rowling had red truth'd early on Dumbledore will not die during the series. I mean, I guess you can, but why place that kind of arbitrary limitation on yourself, unless it's someting like the Decalogue, which serves to prove you're "playing fair" with your readers? [/COLOR]

This is categorically possible; a Logic Error literally could not exist unless apparently contradictory red truth is permissible. Exactly why some things can't be said in red, even by a Game Master, is not something I'll get into right now (in no small part because I don't want to think about it). But it's clearly possible to create a scenario in which you, as the writer, state two things as absolute fact (essentially Word of God, to borrow the trope) which cannot be true.

For example, if I write a story about a man who lives alone on an alien planet, and then a woman appears before him and they get married and settle down. I declare the following things to be red truth:

The man was the only human being living on the planet.

No person ever landed on the planet while the man was there.

The woman definitely became the man's wife.

This is obviously contradictory, and in the Erika fashion my reader could "move to declare" a Logic Error, on the basis that my story makes no sense because of the things I as the author have assured the reader are true. The burden of escaping then falls on me. For example, I can say something like "the woman who became his wife was a robot, so she wasn't a 'human being.'" It may salvage my story, but it might also turn the reader off from trusting me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kealym

Dlanor declared that certain things would NEVER exist, IIRC - they're just generally avoided as a rule, because they can make things awkward as the tale gets longer and more restricted by what came before.

Her phrasing was more along the lines of "that doesn't exist in this story and I will not allow it to exist in this story." That's not so much a prediction as a statement of her intent. Essentially she's saying "robots and teleporters and magic pills and aliens will not exist in this story as long as I have anything to say about it." Since her power seems to be the ability to violently and directly enforce the Decalogue, this is so.

However, if someone were somehow more powerful than her, her prediction would falter. Exactly what that means on a meta-fictional level is probably not worth worrying about, but as an example you have something like Asimov's robot stories, which feature a level of technology that can technically follow Knox's rules while also having things like starships and robots in them due to their setting.

A clever writer could "write around" Dlanor's objections with the right kind of story, not actually breaking Knox but essentially trivializing the rules by incorporation. Or an amazingly skilled writer could outright break those rules intentionally to show off his or her mastery of the mystery genre. Some people have broken every convention of the mystery genre before (to varying success), so it's not unimaginable that on a meta-level those authors would have been able to "defeat" Dlanor even if she stood in opposition to them.